I thought I have seen this on one of the history channels programs (disc, his, nat geo group) but this is some cool footage. I wonder how long it took to convince the pilots to let a man with some jets and a wing strapped to his back run formation around their million dollar machines however.Either way, that just looks fun as all hell

I thought I have seen this on one of the history channels programs (disc, his, nat geo group) but this is some cool footage. I wonder how long it took to convince the pilots to let a man with some jets and a wing strapped to his back run formation around their million dollar machines however.Either way, that just looks fun as all hell

If anything went wrong, I don't think it would be the plane piilots who came off worse.

There is a poster calendar in my office from Breitling that shows a picture of Mr. Rossy in formation with four Breitling aerobatic jets from an airshow in 2009.

These impactical adventurer types. He should be monetizing the idea. Just picture it - a squidgee taped to his arm, and a sign taped to his torso that reads "$5 to clean your windows"? *grin* Oh and he should change his name to Benny and team up with the band that made the son;-)

Look at the jets - flaps down, they're running close to stall speed just so he can keep up. Doesn't mean it's not cool and all, but he's not going at "fighter jet speed!", he's going at "fighter jet trying to fly really slow" speed.

err yes - let's not forget that he's totally exposed and his neck has to hold his head in place at that speed!
Try going above 130mph on a superbike, then lift your head above the cowl/fairing and see what that feels like. Having done a fair amount of mileage on the German Autobahns and Nurburgring on a superbike, I can tell you that above maybe 110mph is uncomfortable; 170mph (my fastest ever) was deeply unpleasant and only bearable for a few minutes, if that.

You need a better helmet my friend. I certainly don't have that problem. My Shoei X11 is great at high speed - only gets a little squidgy in high crosswinds which we have here in the high desert quite a lot in spring and fall unfortunately.

Granted it wasn't a great helmet when I did those speeds - I've upgraded to a Craft RX1 Cobra which is significantly better - staying level and not lifting, but at the end of the day you're still pushing your head through air at 180mph which is quite a lot considering a human in freefall will do ~120mph...

According to TFA (crazy, right?) they're flying at "just above stall speed" and the jet-suit is at full throttle doing 120 - 180 MPH. So yeah, it's not like the jets couldn't have left him completley in the dust without really trying, but it's still damn impressive that he can keep up at all. I mean, that's a guy strapped to a bit of carbon fiber and metal, able to reach the (minimum) speed of stable flight for a fixed-wing jet aircraft.

Hey man, at least you didn't go the whole "it's not as fast, garbage, blah blah" route. There's a man flying with basically a wing and engines strapped to his back, and all people seem to do is shit all over this awesome feat of engineering rather than appreciate it in any way.

Exactly. All I can say is, good for him. Does anyone here realizing he is literally living every boy's dream?!?!? Is there anyone here who wouldn't jump at the chance to strap themselves into this thing if offered?

If anything, get made at the video's producers, for whom a flying man isn't dramatic enough, that they felt they had to add the title "Jetman vs. Jets"

Anyone who is "unimpressed" by a guy with a wing and four jet engines strapped on his back flying in formation with jet planes for no reason other than because he feels like it needs to have his or her geek card revoked.

Eh. Standard/. car analogy: My daily driver could theoretically be a indy 500 pace car. indy500 cars are cool because they're high tech and high performance and all that. My daily driver is cool because it hauls me thru stop and go rush hour traffic with perfect reliability for 13 years now from 110 above to 20 below. I bet it would be fun as heck to drive my car as an indy 500 pace car. But I'm not impressed by mere numerology that there exists a spot on the speedometer below my redline and above th

Eh, I'm fairly impressed that a jetpack can fly in formation with any fixed-wing jet aircraft. Yeah, they're only a little above stall speed, but most manned aircraft even close to the size of that suit's wing can't reach 100 knots at all, much less 180.

As for the distance, remember that his suit has very little mass to withstand turbulence. Sure, it would be cool to show him nestled between the two planes or soemthing like that, but it would also be extremely dangerous, especially since if something went wrong he's already at max power and they're already at min, which limits the maneuvers either can make. Flying around them close enough to see the pilots is already one hell of an accomplishment.

As opposed to a cameraman who just happened to be flying by as Rossy just happened to be flying by as two L-39C's just happened to be flying by and by some miracle they all wound up in the same shot? The shot is real, the three flew in such a way that all were captured by a single camera shot, nothing more is being claimed from what I can tell.

It's not really about whether this jetman set up can compete with jets, my friend. It's showing that his set up is reliable enough they can take on a stunt like this.... which means it's probably interesting for military special forces for getting their people into places they couldn't get to otherwise.

- it sells expensive watches, rich people want to believe they are part of the dream, just like kids do when they buy their nikes or adidas- it sells the technology to military, who wouldn't really expect it to be used to catch up with real jets and open them up with can openers, they will have other ideas...

Wrong. Look at the screen at 1:05. Rossy is clearly closer to the camera than the jets, but even if you assume he is equidistant at this point, the jets are still at least 4 Rossy-lengths long. Get your eyes checked.

I sincerely hope that we don't have flying cars any time soon -- just look how bad people are at paying attention to our current two dimensional travel. Adding a third dimension into the mix would be very, very bad. Now, couple this with Google's self driving car tech and we could have something interesting...

He has been doing the exact same thing since 2006. Instead of promotional video, he might want to work on autonomous take-off.

Yeah, tell him to call us once he's got something that can do at least Mach 2, has a functional invisibility shield, and can run on a waist pack cold fusion power sourcetoo. Until then, colour us unimpressed.

I'd be a lot more proud of the guy if this demo was funded by someone who gives a shit about science.

Breitling makes designer watches for men. They don't fund this guy for the sake of science or nerd fun or any other interesting purpose.

His entire purpose up there is selling the James Bond image that marketers try to associate with fancy watches, expensive cognac, race car camp, etc. Really, Yves Rossy serves no higher purpose than the pair of DD tits on the fashion model draped over the man who just so

In a world where NASA hasn't been able to get really good funding since the moon landings, are you really going to criticize a guy over a sponsor whose greatest crime is trying to sell you bling bling?

It's probably not quite correct to say that Breitling doesn't "give a shit about science" or that they make "designer watches." Designer watches are what you pick up for $49.95 at Marshall's and toss in the trash when the battery dies. If you've ever held a Breitling, you'd certainly agree that the quality of design and workmanship is orders of magnitude better than a typical "designer watch." Admittedly, the price is also orders of magnitude greater, but you get what you pay for. And there's an enormous amount of both science and engineering that goes into the manufacture of a modern mechanical timepiece. Watch manufacturers are constantly working to develop longer-lasting and more effective lubricants. They develop new alloys to use in escapements to make their watches more resistant to the effects of gravity, magnetism and temperature. They use silicon and other materials in place of metal to reduce both wear and the need for lubrication in their movements.
So, I'm thinking that the folks at Breitling probably do give a shit about science.

Agree. Breitling is the shiznit. As are Omega and IWC. Rolex, on the other hand, is shite.

Breitling have been supporting aviation for a very long time. Chronographs for pilots are one of their specialties. Back when a watch was a critical navigation tool they were the watch to have. They returned the favor by sponsoring all sorts of aviation competition.

And really, it doesn't matter who sponsors it. Yves Rossy is the one doing the science on his equipment. His wing could be covered with a giant Orangina logo and it'd still be the single coolest fucking thing in the air.

Thats just his funding. If you're going to right him off for "selling out" to a corporation to get funding, fine. But that means you should also hate most of science and the arts. Funding is a necessary evil, you can't do science without. Yes, in a perfect world maybe there'd be science for science's sake. But hey, this guy is out doing what he loves, and he's doing some pretty awesome things. I don't think its fair to judge him just because he needed help paying for those mini-jet engines.

...There is a close and natural relation between Breitling and aviation since nearly one century. They make chronographs and watches that are more aeronautical flight intruments than watches, and which have been widely adopted in aviation not for bling-bling reasons but for their specialization and their high-perf.

There is no marketing need to "try to associate" some James Bond image to watches that are used by astronauts in space (since NASA's Mercury program)...

One correction: While Breitling has a robust history in aviation, no Breitling watches have ever (officially) been used in space by NASA. The only watches certified by NASA for spaceflight are the Omega Speedmaster Professional and (I believe) the Omega Speedmaster X-33. Interestingly, the current Speedmaster Professional is virtually identical to the one selected by NASA in the mid-1960's mechanical, handwind movement and all. The only modification NASA made to the Speedmasters that went into space was

Breitling makes designer watches for men. They don't fund this guy for the sake of science or nerd fun or any other interesting purpose

You sound like a particularly annoying thirteen year old, jam-packed with smug. When you grow up, you will find that in the real world you have to pay for things, you can't just rely on handouts from your doting parents.

Why does it matter who's sponsoring him? He wants to fly a jet-powered wing. The guy's an airline pilot, which means that if he's really lucky (and assuming he hasn't inherited any wealth) he might just make 6 digits a year. Playing with flying turbine-powered carbon fiber toys will push his finances to the limit, Breitling's helping to cover the costs.

I got to know Yves back in the 90's when he spent some time hanging out here in Zermatt (pre Jet-man days, when he only was doing sky surfing on a scale jet model of the Mirage he used to fly for the Swiss Air Force). Very nice guy. Very intense + focused guy too!

Here you can see a speed flyer (tiny, tiny paraglider) doing a similar trick with a guy flying a wing suit (in Wengen Switzerland). Kudos!
B.A.S.E. XRW part one - http://vimeo.com/29231099 [vimeo.com]
B.A.S.E. XRW part two - http://vimeo.com/30623100 [vimeo.com]

And this one is just plain cool. Great tune and slick video mix.
Spitfire Proximity - http://youtu.be/IZ9xoV6sUFc [youtu.be]
(as my flying buddy told me: *the only reason to wear a helmet for these sports, is to have a place to mount your GoPro*)